Tank homogenization

[Duskane]

im sure we can simplify tanks to the bare minimum and call them the same
but they all play fairly differently now, only thing close to it now besides the tools we need is Delirium being a bootleg inner release but even then Drk game plan is very different from warriors

[Jandor]

You just agreed with me, good job.

Sure, if you delete the rest of their post.

[Big-Isaac]

This text used to be a lot longer. Had to cut it down to get under that stupid 3000 character limit

All of the self healing [...]

Except for the fact that that's not remotely true. Brewmaster Monk is notorious for their non-existent self sustain, shriveling up and dying in record time without healer attention. Warriors and Druids are better, but not by much. Blood DKs and Demon Hunters are the only tanks that have decent self healing, and needless to say they achieve it in vastly different ways.

Really, your use of WoW as an example [...]

Despite Blizzard's attempts to balance the tanks, the way each gets to their mitigation is still vastly different, as I said before.

Not to mention that the OP is about far more than just the basic defensive CDs. I'm also talking about utility OUTSIDE of the mitigation. Look at all the utility a Brewmaster Monk brings that a Prot Pala does not, and vice versa. Look at what a Blood DK can do compared to a Guardian Druid, etc etc.
Each comes with abilities that come in handy in specific situations, which leads to those moments of glory I keep talking about.

Hell, we have an example of just that in XIV already. [...]

Oh please, like comp cheesing isn't a thing in this game already. Top tier raiders will always math out what's best and go for it. Hence why PLD got the shaft during HW, why WHM was treated as the "unwanted" healer for large parts of HW and SB, and why several DPS jobs have had their turn on the bench.
Whether it's because one job has 2% higher output or because the job has a skill that makes the fight easier, people are always going to gravitate towards what's best. But why would you rather be in a group - because your job deals 5% more DPS than another, or because your job has a skill that lets it do something really cool in that fight?

Some of my strongest memories I have of playing MMOs (not even just tanking, but healing and DPS as well) came from instances where I could make a big difference for my raid team just by utilizing my class' unique tools. That's why I find it such a crying shame that FF14's job design barely allows for such things. Being "just another tank" or "just another caster DPS" is lame. Moments where you can make the uniqueness of your job shine are the moments that get you truly attached to your job of choice, infinitely more so than being 2% ahead on DPS.
In fact, one of my better memories of FF14 comes from this as well - the first time I ran a SB dungeon with a shitty healer. Because I was a PLD, we could still clear all the bosses even though the healer would constantly die. The unique trait of PLD having access to Clemency made a huge difference in that dungeon. Had I been a DRK or WAR, this would not have been possible. That's the kind of unique moments of glory I want to see more of in this game.

[Bright-Flower]

If anything FFXIV is probably less disposed to cheese comps. I'm not saying they don't happen, but the serious content in FFXIV is only 8 players and the penalty to LB generation discourages having more than one of any given job, so you won't have cases where say a mythic guild might stack rogues or something on a fight because rogues happen to be really well suited to this particular fight's mechanics or something, etc.

[Big-Isaac]

If anything FFXIV is probably less disposed to cheese comps. I'm not saying they don't happen, but the serious content in FFXIV is only 8 players and the penalty to LB generation discourages having more than one of any given job, so you won't have cases where say a mythic guild might stack rogues or something on a fight because rogues happen to be really well suited to this particular fight's mechanics or something, etc.

If anything, the fact that the game discourages class stacking is all the more reason to give jobs more unique utilities. The worst possible outcome of class imbalance is already mitigated, so they could actually go even more wild than WoW

[Shurrikhan]

His comment makes perfect sense. All Tanks should have the same kit in function, with their general gameplay being their identity.

WoW used to have different classes have wildly different role kits. Do you know how long Resto Druids had to play without a standard Raise spell? Too long is the answer. Paladins couldn't even taunt for a long while. Bosses like Illidan were nearly functionally impossible for any Tank but a Warrior because of Shear and how Crushing Blows worked at the time.

It just isn't feasible from a design perspective to have multiple jobs with the same role missing important tools for the sake of not wanting them to "feel the same as each other". All it does is make people choose which one has the best tools for a particular fight and exclude the others. An example of that is again Black Temple in WoW. I was a maintank Warrior for that with a Paladin co tank. On trash fights, I was useless. On boss fights he was useless. (Except council fight, where I had the dubious honor of booping the rogue) Because the design at the time was that the Tanks (and Healers) couldn't have similar tools out of fear of identity loss.

I am incredibly glad that SE decided to go the route of ensuring every tank had the same tools but still managed to play entirely different to each other.

Looking at notorious periods of imbalance from when WoW still thought of itself largely as an RPG (where Rez was a utility of convenience, alike to summoning stones, mage portals, and even being merely able to spec into a tank, and the "game" and its "content" was not yet limited purely to "endgame") to make a point for the necessity of homogenization is about as disingenuous as discussing the sustainability of nuclear reactors on the sole basis and sole knowledge of a nuclear bomb. Early WoW and XIV are, yes, both MMOs. Their applicable comparisons end close behind that, however, unless you wish to discuss the benefits of world-oriented approach vs. endgame-oriented approach to design, where it can at least have tangential relevance, or the appeal of particular settings, archetypes, or tropes (as per any MMO or work of interactive play). We expect better polish from this game so deep into the genre than we did from, say, the Burning Crusade.

You can have job identity without being denied basic tools. You can have job identity while still having the ability to control threat/enmity. In fact, you can even do so in unique fashion, so long the basic capacities are met. You can absolutely make up each and every necessary capacity of a tank without needing identical gameplay or mechanics.

It's easy to cherry-pick non-examples from one setting and toss them verbatim at another as if they implied something; the gaming world is filled with failures and incomplete or flawed works to choose from at your leisure. But if you can't show exhaustively how every homogenized mechanic among tanks absolutely demands that exact approach to meeting the capacity it suits, then you have no actual concept by which to find homogenization necessary.

Tanks can function diversely and feel individually unique and still be balanced. On the other hand, merely ensuring that every tank has the same base tools and then expanding there-past on the assumption that their shared core will give them balanced value in content is foolish; it guarantees nothing except that they will start with the same capacities and that their uniqueness will always be fettered to that shared block of "Tank", rather than "Dark Knight", "Warrior", "Paladin", and "Gunbreaker".

Hell, we have an example of just that in XIV already. Pre Tank invuln Holmgang. Paladins could cheese certain mechanics with Hallowed Ground, Warriors couldn't. Warriors got benched.

Food for thought:

Paladin could at one time Cover in order to essentially double-Hallowed Ground crucial mechanics--such as during pre-fix Firefall, pre-buff stacks, or the orbs on Omega Ex, allowing a minor sort of cheese strat for struggling parties. This wasn't needed but once, but it was damn powerful.

However, when this was fixed, rather than seeing Paladins fall off with their greatly diminished value (though, they were already basically 50/50 on average), Warriors started being benched. You see, once the Paladin could no longer cover for both tanks in order to solidify the swap or deal with both the TB and orbs simultaneously while healers were both frantically keeping the rest of the party alive, they simply started taking two Paladins. The noted imbalance fix had backfired because it actually restructured the fight design and tightened the apparent need for a second mobile immunity skill.

As you've pointed out, the fit of a job or class into a given fight has often less to do with the job itself than the mechanics of the fight. But there are periods where a particular (excessive) power acts not in the advantage of the job itself but for another because there is only so much to cheese or so many checks to fill. Make a ~6-minute fight have just one thing to immunity, but through which only Hallowed Ground can last, and you force Paladin. Give the same fight a frantic triple-crit flurry that would otherwise require no immunity, but would require immense healer attention, and you greatly entice use of Dark Knight for its pre-immunity stage (more so if the skill were more functionally balanced). Give an add phase damage enough to entice an Immunity in place of a CD during a less hectic, but significant, tank-flurry preceding it (repeated twice or thrice over the whole fight) and you entice use of Warrior.

No matter what you to the jobs themselves, those jobs variances will have to be accounted for. But, you'd be amiss to guess that just because one shrinks the differences between kits, the differences in community performance expectations would shrink as well. It's often the opposite. Give nothing worth experimenting with, and community trends tighten and narrow even faster. Prove through your fight designs that you will give something worth experimenting for, and community expectations remain open far longer. That confidence experimentation can be rewarded--precisely because fight designs show that they were made with jump times and tankbuster timings and mobility periods with the job toolkits in mind--often does more to let players enjoy the jobs of the game (and not just they themselves play) than any ease of optimization.

Sidenote: I had no significant troubles co-tanking with Warriors who had no Provoke. Admittedly, though, it was much easier if they had XIVapp for its enmity tracker, as that function hadn't been added to the official UI yet when I ran into most of these no-Voke Warrior mains. It was easier, of course, if I was a Warrior as well or I could get significant life-saving value of Stoneskin, but alas, I'd never failed a meaningful swap for it outside of one Ifrit Extreme run. Likewise, I had no difficulties tanking on Paladin without a direct taunt (HotR); if anything my pull-three-from-target-ally functionality was better for speedpulling multiple weak mobs from patrols at once via a Feign-Death-pulling Hunter, as I would only keep the three and all others would be returned to where they were pulled from.

[Kanitezz]

This is what people complain about though. "THIS tank can do this. Why can't THIS tank do the same?" "THIS tank doesn't have to worry about THIS. Why should THIS tank have to?"

One side is crying because of "Homogenization". The other side is crying about lack of "Homogenization".

[TouchandFeel]

One side is crying because of "Homogenization". The other side is crying about lack of "Homogenization".

The odd thing is that there really is no division of "sides" and that it is moreso comprised of many different people not realizing or caring to think of the results of getting what they ask for.

Also since we are going there, people in general should really be more thought-out, organized and specific with their feedback if they want specific outcomes. Not to say that there aren't some that provide excellent feedback, just in general the feedback presented can be a tad ... hmmm how to put it ... emotionally chaotic.

[Inuk9]

People want to tanks to be completely different but at the same time perfectly balanced.

DRK has TBN and high MP management
PLD has 2 stage rotations and big support skills
Warrior has burst damage, high HP pool, big oGCD self-healing

The playstyle with those 3 is different enough.

[Kanitezz]

The odd thing is that there really is no division of "sides" and that it is moreso comprised of many different people not realizing or caring to think of the results of getting what they ask for.

Also since we are going there, people in general should really be more thought-out, organized and specific with their feedback if they want specific outcomes. Not to say that there aren't some that provide excellent feedback, just in general the feedback presented can be a tad ... hmmm how to put it ... emotionally chaotic.

That's a great way to put it.